Sunday, July 26, 2009

I haven't been completely honest with you guys... I said I don't do weddings. Well, that was partially true. I was winding down, but wasn't completely done, per se. That is until today. Today I shot my last wedding for a while. I won't say that it will be my last wedding ever, but with our business being incredibly busy with children, families, and seniors, I wanted to create a definite place for us to focus. Weddings won't be a focus for us, but if we find the right circumstances, we might shoot another one. (We are suckers for touching stories...!)

Anyway, about the wedding today... I have been excited to tell you guys about this wedding from the moment I heard about it.

A couple months ago, my friend Jill approached me and was talking about her friend that was getting married. Her friend Karen was looking for a wedding photographer. Karen's husband has passed unexpectedly a couple of years before. She was left with three young children, the youngest of which was barely a year old. His passing was heart breaking.

This afternoon I asked Jill how they met and my jaw dropped when I heard the response... They had been introduced by Maryann Gilliam who in 2006 had assistance from the Armada Community and the ABC television show Extreme Home Makeover. Maryann Gilliam’s husband, David, was a firefighter and paramedic who died unexpectedly on Christmas Eve 2005. Maryann, 32, was left with six children (ages eight months to 12 years old) in a small farmhouse David was renovating. The family’s story reached the ABC TV show “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition,” and the rest is history.

It was at this new house, that the children would meet their new dad. I love the irony... A house built for the purpose of helping a family cope with their own tragedy helped another family move forward with their life.

I will let the pictures do the talking as I like to do most of the time. I will have you pay special attention to the top left photograph though. Tears were streaming down my face as I took this photo. When this photo was taken there was a very moving slideshow that everyone was watching with photos of their family... and this new dad took time out to comfort this little boy during the duration of the slideshow. From the moment where these three young men walked their mom out to get married, it was incredibly moving, and I was truly honored to be a part of it...

So, occasionally (usually at the end of a day of shooting) my last session will be on site at a special location. Laura provides me with an address and my GPS tells me how to get there.

At this location, I was shocked to discover that I was about 10 houses down from the Goforth residence (I just posted their pictures tonight.) I asked them if they knew each other and they did not. Small world though!

This family was hilarious. I had them do a specific shot where they had to stand just so, and they all wound up falling backwards into a patch of dense bushes. No one was hurt and everyone was laughing really hard.

I recently spent a couple hours with the Goforth Family. They were a ton of fun, and really allowed me to have fun and shoot the way I like to... the pictures really allowed me to capture their personalities.

The first picture is one of my absolute favorites. This woman hates getting her picture taken and we were able to surprise her in a way that allowed me to capture this great moment.

These guys scheduled this shoot in response to my post about why I am a photographer. How are all of you doing in that regard? Did you find someone to take your pictures yet? (Especially all you photographers out there that read my blog.) Anyway, I am following through on my promise: our family shoot is next weekend and yes, I will post my mug on the blog for all of you to see that I kept my word.

Last but not least, there is a quote I read tonight... "Enjoy the little things in life, for one day you will look back and realize they were the big things."

So, most of you guys probably know that I have a 9 year old cat, who name is Ray. (That is the name he came with and we thought it was mean to change it.)

What you don't know is that he is a huge, powerful, stubborn mule! (But I love him very very much.) Unfortunately, our little guy got really sick this last week. His liver stated to fail and he needed to be hospitalized for most of this week. The doctors didn't think he would live more than a couple days. He refused to eat unless we were there, so we have been traveling to the vet three times a day. He went in extremely feeble, and by this morning he had recovered enough that he was ripping out his IV and giving the nurses quite a run for their money.

Anyway, I think they had had enough of him, and so he's back with us now. Which is good because five days in the kitty hospital was almost two grand... ouuuuuch.

So, I have been neglecting my blog, partially because I have been busy, and partially because I have been at the vet's office all week ....Time to play catch up....!!!